The Autoweek Dispatch

Friday, March 6, 2020

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“The BMW Concept i4’s front-end treatment presents the familiar BMW icons in a new look, lending a visually powerful face to the electric age at BMW. The prominent, closed-off kidney grille provides a tangible connection between the past and future of BMW. The BMW icon also gains new functionality: With no combustion engine to require cooling, the grille now serves primarily as an ‘intelligence panel’ housing various sensors …”
—BMW AG officials describing the concept they’d intended to show in Geneva but showed via email instead. “Visually powerful?” Hmmmm. We’ll leave it to you readers to decide whether you like it, can live with it or if you must divert your eyes.

GOOD WOOD
This week’s Autoweek Talks feature is all about wood, with a bunch of cool stories including one answering the eternal question: Are Morgans still made of wood? We also delve into boat racer Gar Wood (you’ll have to read the piece to understand the automotive hook) and a story about some ’70s woody wagons you might have forgotten (AMC Pacer DL wagon anyone?). Oh, and of course there’s a feature on NASCAR’s Wood Brothers—how could we not?

RACING LINES
As this is being written, the Formula 1 season opener in Australia is still on for March 13-15, and teams are beginning to make their way to Melbourne. It’s still possible the race gets canceled, but for now it’s full steam ahead with both the Formula One Group and the Australian Grand Prix Corp. saying the race is happening. The F1 Group’s Ross Brawn is making it clear that the race is being canceled if even one team is not allowed to enter Australia, adding that if a team chooses not to go, the race will go on. Bahrain, the race after Melbourne, is taking a wait-and-see attitude, with organizers saying they were halting ticket sales for this year’s race while they assess the situation. Here's more on the outlook for the entire F1 season in light of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

You had to know this was coming: A driver pranged a prototype of NASCAR’s Next-Gen stock car. Hendrick Motorsports’ William Byron was the fourth driver to turn laps in a prototype of the machine debuting next season. Testing the car at Auto Club Speedway in Southern California, he spun it once and then brushed the backstretch wall. But hey, it’s all good. “This is exactly why we test,” said John Probst, NASCAR’s senior VP of racing innovation. “We were able to put almost 300 miles on the car the past two days and captured some valuable data. This gives us a good opportunity to make sure the car holds up as expected during an incident. We’ll review everything available to us and move forward.”

CAR NEWS AND NOTES
The Geneva show being canceled certainly didn’t mean fewer introductions—and as is usual with that show, many debuts were wild and wacky. Geneva is annually a good look at what’s happening in the new-vehicle world with supercars, bread vans and everything in between shown there. Heck, even Morgan showed a new car! The next big show is in New York, and it’s on so far, though organizers are stocking up on disinfectant (not kidding).

Feb. 27, 2020, was the end of an era when Chevrolet’s last Impala rolled off the line at General Motors’ Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant. Starting in 1957, Impalas were produced on and off for 50-plus years, with the fourth generation (1965-1970) setting a sales record at more than a million per year. GM is retooling the plant to build the new electric GMC Hummer and the upcoming Cruise Origin EV and other future electrics. GM also revealed a few more EV plans, including a new Cadillac utility called Lyriq.

WHAT WE'RE DRIVING
Robin Warner spent time in a couple Volkswagens, the base (and Autoweek favorite) Golf and the new Atlas crossover coupe, the Cross Sport. Clearly VW is looking at the same consumer landscape as every other automaker and knows the more SUVs the better. Thus, the people’s car company took its successful, family-focused seven-passenger Atlas and removed the third row. Voila, it’s now a trendy and hip Atlas Cross Sport. It’s not that simple, except it is.

Mark Vaughn drove Mercedes-Benz’s physics-defying GLE 63 S, a GLE AMG stuffs with 603-hp worth of twin-turbo V8. True, the AMG costs $114,945, but in some ways it’s a bargain: Bentley’s Bentayga, Aston Martin’s DBX and Rolls-Royce’s Cullinan all cost more and are slower than the Benz. So there.

SOME ODDS, MOSTLY ENDS
For folks east of the Mississippi, our hometown Detroit Autorama is the premier custom-car and hot rod show. Autorama has it all: supremely finished restomods, hot rods, customs, drag cars, off-road machines, drift missiles. This year’s show was exceptional. Check it out here.

LISTEN UP
The “Autoweek Podcast,” Ep. 99, sees Natalie Neff, Wes Raynal, Wesley Wren and Graham Kozak discussing this week’s Talks subject, wood. Raynal discusses Gar Wood, the man’s history in hydraulics and his prolific racing career. From there, Graham and Wesley head to the Detroit Autorama show floor to talk with All Girls Garage star Bogi Lateiner, while Mike Pryson catches up with racing legend Lyn St. James. Wren and Kozak close the show discussing Autorama’s Ridler winner, a 1963 Chevrolet wagon. Check out Ep. 99 and all the other Autoweek Podcasts here.

WHAT’S AHEAD
We’ll be around all weekend, so check in often for all the racing happenings in IndyCar, NASCAR, F1, IMSA and more. And of course we’ll see you next week with more car news, reviews and car culture stories. Lastly, wash your hands!

--Wes Raynal, Editor